FOUR in the bed?!?!?!?

When I was pregnant on the Snot Queen, I had very definite ideas on how my baby would be raised.

Co Sleeping did not figure highly in these plans.

In fact, it didn't figure at all. As far as I was concerned, our baby would be sleeping in a cot, in its own room, from day one. I had read Gina Ford, well, skimmed actually... okay, I read the introduction where I was promised a perfectly timed eating, sleeping, pooping, contented little baby and then threw it aside to be dealt with later when I got to the boring bits, i.e the rest of the book.

At the time, it made sense to me. Babies were brand new people unaccustomed to the ways and means of our world. It was our job as parents to train them in these ways. They needed cots and nurseries, black out blinds and white noise machines. Above all else though, they needed ROUTINE.

Yes, that great, oft repeated word from every baby book ever written and whispered into the sweet shell like ears of new mothers all over the western world. Routine, like Jesus and low fat cheese spread, would save us all.

What I hadn't planned on was a week's stay in hospital after the baby was born. A week where night after night, my new little citizen would scream the ward down if I so much as pointed her in the direction of her plastic bassinet. It was on or around the fourth night into our stay that one of the midwives suggested I take her into the bed with me.

A week earlier, I'd have looked at her like she was insane and reported her for negligence. Good Lord! I had enough trouble with the concept of the baby in our room, let alone in our bed!

It's amazing what a little sleep deprivation will do to those hard set ideals.

It was the best. Night's. Sleep. Ever.

For the rest of my stay, myself and the tiny being who would eventually become known as the snot queen, slept cocooned together in my fuzzy red housecoat. Day and night, her warm little body would lie curled against me, rising and falling with every breath.

Once home, she spent a few nights in a Moses basket next to our bed. She hated the basket though and as it was I would invariably doze off during the night feed and wake up with her still in my arms.

We tried a cot with the same result, thinking maybe it was space she craved. It wasn't though, it was us.

By the end of month two, "Our Bed" officially became "The Family Bed" and I became extremely well read on the subject of co sleeping and its many benefits.

I learned about how, with proper safety precautions taken, co sleeping was a great guard against cot death. Babies who cosleep spend less time in what is known as "Level III" sleep, a deep sleep stage where apneas are most likely to occur. As well, during sleep sharing, the infant's breathing and heart rate line up with the mother's and should the baby have an incidence of apnea, the breathing of the parents would stimulate the baby to take the next breath.

Also, babies who co slept, were found to have far lower levels of cortisol, a stress related hormone.

I experienced for myself how much easier it made breastfeeding and would often wake to find she had latched on and fed whilst I was asleep.

Deborah Jackson, my favourite parenting author of all time, wrote a brilliant book on the subject called "Three in a bed" which I can't recommend highly enough.

When I found out I was pregnant on number two, friends and family who were "concerned" about our sleeping arrangements started making helpful suggestions about how the Snot Queen would have to be moved into a bed of her own and how the new baby should really learn to sleep in a cot.

We nodded and smiled and listened politely to everything they said.

In the end, we got a bigger bed.

Take it all off baby...

The snot queen has hit yet another developmental milestone. She can now take her nappy off ALL BY HERSELF. After much experimentation involving pulling of the velcro tabs and picking at the nappy itself, she has finally mastered the art of its full removal and like with every other new skill she develops, she is insisting on doing it again and again and again...

As she has long since had a deep fascination with foraging in this area, you can imagine how thrilled she is to finally be able to get a visual of the contents. Almost as thrilled as I was to find her examining said contents on the sitting room floor this morning.

I'll give you a moment to let that visual sink in.

Toilet training just got a whole lot closer...

Naps and Neighbors and Noise, OH MY!

So there I was. The small one had just gone down for a nap which, if you believe what all the books say, meant a good 3 - 4 hours of slumber on her part. However, if you actually have children, you will know this to be a BIG FAT LIE which none the less will torment you until well after your kids are grown and gone.

By some strange cosmic twist, the snot queen then curled up and dozed off in my lap. Could it be? Could it really be? Could BOTH of my little angels be sleeping AT THE SAME TIME?

Not wanting to tempt fate further, I carefully stood up and made my way upstairs. Miraculously, the snot queen remained comatose. We made our way to the bedroom. Still, she slept.

As I gently lay her down on the bed, she stirred slightly, which would have been grand had it not been for three other simultaneous occurences.

1. Someone's house alarm started going off. Loudly.

2. The neighbor's children escaped outside into the rain for 5 minutes of shrieking and screaming. Loudly.

3. The neighbor's on the OTHER side started up some sort of insane DIY project which apparently involved mindlessly hammering on every single adjoining wall we share.

Like a shot, little miss was up and running, all thoughts of sleep firmly vanquished. Downstairs, the small one woke from her twenty minute doze and the tiny string that was oh so slightly holding onto my sanity snapped.

Why does the Universe dislike me so?

In for a Penny, in for a Pound (and a half!) of poo

Why is everything coming out underlined? Seriously, is the universe just testing my patience today? The last 24 hours have been something akin to hell, some strange "mammy hazing ritual" which every mammy must undergo following the birth of each of her children (as though being split apart by labour and delivery wasn't challenging enough!)

Nope! Instead, the powers that be have decreed we must suffer an additional testing phase to ensure that we really are worthy of being mothers. (oooh! the underlining has stopped! yay!) A period of suffering defined by niceties such as stretchmarks, hemmorhoids, teething, gas, hair loss and other fun times which further underline my belief that whatever divine power might be watching out for us is indisputably male...

The Snot Queen is teething. Again. (cue menacing music) This time though, is different. This time, not only do we have the usual suspects - pain, fever, agony and long periods of hellish, unabated screaming during the hours most people consider to be "sleeping hours" - we also have a new guest at the table. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce "Baby Number Two."

As if teething wasn't bad enough on it's own, last night, my normally placid, chilled out newborn came down with a lovely case of wind. This meant that everytime the snot queen settled into a temporary peace, instead of managing to grab a few precious minutes of sleep, I would have to roll over and tend to the squawking, red bundle of trapped wind and resentment that was masquerading as baby number two.

By 4am my vocabulary had been reduced to repeating a certain four letter word (starts with f, rhymes with duck, has an amazing number of uses!) at various volumes as a mantra of sorts, in an effort not to throw either of my lovely ducklings out the window.

At 6am, the big one's fever broke and satan released his grip on the small one. For the next few hours, we slept.

When I awoke, I discovered the snot queen had created the kind of nappy that can only be described as toxic and which over the course of the night had leaked out the sides and run down her legs to form a lovely brown pool on the sheets (which then soaked through to the mattress below) A nappy which out of sheer curiosity was placed on the scales and found to be weighing in at a pound and a half.

On the bright side, I've recieved my first ever blogger award (Thanks Jen!) Which I in turn will be passing on to some other deserving blogs including two battle scarred veterans of the sisterhood ( infantasia and living in a toybox who really needs to sort her comments setting!) and two little innocents about to bravely enter the pukey, pooey world of parenting, yup, that's right, xbox4nappyrash and wannabe dad. Congratulations guys, it's a messy, mad and at times heartbreaking world, but it is the greatest gift you will ever be given (and no, I'm not talking about the blog award, though that's pretty sweet too!)

Right, I'm off to clean the poo out of my mattress. Have a great day!

Foolproof Parenting

I don't have much time. The small one is halfway through tearing all of the wipes out of the package and only has another forty or so to go before she hits bottom.

This is part of my fabulous new parenting strategy. I call it the "Do what you want so long as it's not too dangerous, doesn't permanently damage the apartment, you do it quietly and let mommy get her work done" plan.

So far it's going rather well. In the last twenty four hours I've managed to finish editing another four chapters of "The Book" (which you can read a few excerpts from by clicking here) and all I've had to do is allow my 14 month old daughter free reign of the kingdom.

So what if the sitting room looks like a bomb hit it and there are no longer any clothes on the drying rack below the three foot mark? Who cares if a few rolls of toilet paper got shredded or ended up stuffed down the toilet? Or for that matter eaten! It's fibre.

And speaking of eating, I'm pretty sure that a few raw potatoes and kiwis with the skins still on never did anyone any harm! Sure, she's broadening her culinary horizons is all!

My plan after all is nothing if not healthy! She gets plenty of exercise and fresh air crawling in and out onto the (glassed in) balcony, the door of which is left open for easy access, and her foraging skills are growing by the day!

All in all, I'd recommend this plan to anyone with things to get done and no time to accomplish them. All you need is an open minded view of just what constitutes "neglect" and of course, a steady supply of baby wipes.